The Last Lesson
by atree
Summary: As Maltran kneels on the battlefield with her blood staining the grass, she gazes at the terrified face of Alisha and wonders why, in her decade as teacher, she has never been able to fix that fatal flaw.


A/N: Maltran's actions during her death were bizarre, to say the least. This is my take on the scene and on Maltran's character. I have taken liberties with the dialogue.

The Last Lesson

Maltran has been asked many times why she serves as advisor to the Diphda family. She cannot reveal the true reason, but the lie she repeats bears truth enough: Alisha holds the potential to change the world. The girl is young, Maltran says with perfect honesty, but she is sincere, and above all else her determination has no equal. In sunlit ballrooms draped with velvet, with dancers twirling on the center floor and the orchestra playing in the far corner, the other nobles – their smiles eased by wine – nod and agree that the Diphda girl certainly is earnest.

As Maltran kneels on the battlefield with her blood staining the grass, she gazes at the terrified face of Alisha and wonders why, in her decade as teacher, she has never been able to fix that fatal flaw.

"It's not working," the fire seraphim – Lailah – says. The others regard Maltran with suspicion, their weapons raised, as if waiting for her to grow teeth and tentacles at any moment. Such pure, simple fools. She sees why Alisha likes them.

Alisha says something. She clutches her hands to her chest, and the words are not so important as the tone, the pitch, the break in the middle that disguises a sob. Maltran has seen that same expression once before, ten years ago, when young Alisha knelt beside her mother's coffin in the rain. Maltran's heart had been harder then. She could only think how perfect this girl was, this seed that would one day lead to the world's ruin. A noble in no great position of power – else others would snatch her up before Maltran could – but whose claim to the throne was just tenable enough to create a threat. Young, and impressionable, and vulnerable after the death of the only person in the world who loved her. Maltran had but to extend a hand and the girl was hers forever.

Painstakingly, Maltran picks herself up. The Shepherd and his crew take a step back. Despite everything, Maltran feels a tinge of pride at their fear. Her reputation is hard-earned. The fools don't even know they have won.

"Alisha," she murmurs, laying a hand on the girl's cheek. "You were my greatest failure."

What use is a sword that cannot cut? Alisha's defect first showed itself at the Knight Academy, where, try as her instructors might, she refused to injure even a training dummy. Her skill was not in question. In basic exercises her swings and thrusts were flawless, and the first time Maltran saw her she thought that the girl would one day surpass her as a soldier. Yet Alisha could not win a fight. Even against girls three years her junior she could not win a fight. She was capable of evading every thrust and parrying every blow, but she refused to lift her spear for even a single attack.

"I don't want to hurt anyone," she told Maltran. She was fighting back tears, her body purple with bruises made by children less kind than she, and Maltran had taken her into her arms and held her close.

Now, looking at that tear-stained face once again, Maltran thinks that perhaps her efforts have not been completely in vain. The wound on Maltran's leg pulsates – a ten-inch slash from thigh to knee where Alisha's spear had caught her in a moment of vulnerability, one of many moments – too many – during the fight. It has been a long time since she has lost. The pain makes Maltran smile. Less than a dozen soldiers have wounded her since she became the Blue Valkyrie, and half of them stand here now.

"You're soft to the core," Maltran says, not unkindly. "You will need more, if you want to change the world."

"Please…Lady Maltran…"

Always so formal. For ten years Alisha had referred to Maltran by her title. Maltran never tried to correct her. There was no need. What did she care how she was referred? But the slight burned.

"In another lifetime, perhaps," Maltran says, though she is rapidly losing consciousness and she is not sure if she says it or thinks it. There's no use in jealousy towards the dead, especially not towards a woman she has never met. Worse than jealousy is the shame of jealousy. But the spark is there, a thorn stuck under her nail, a drop of poison trickling down her spine that leaves her irritable on the best days, and in those ten years she has begun to hate that corpse buried in the commoner's grave where Alisha went once a year without fail, in rain or snow or lightning, that decomposed husk which Alicia referred to with an intimacy reserved for nobody else, and which no amount of gratitude or respect or fear could compensate for, and if Alisha had called Maltran by that name once – just _once_ in ten years, even if purely by accident – then perhaps the course of the world would've been changed by that one word.

 _Mother_.

"A hopeless fancy," Maltran says, and this time she knows she says it out loud because Alisha goes rigid. Another mistake – it is already too late for kindness, was already too late that one burning afternoon on the battlefield. Has it really been twelve years? She is not so young any more. The enemy had been routed and victory would've been hers again by nightfall. Yet there was a chill in the air, and when she turned to announce the victory to her squad she saw something dark in the eyes of her men, a look of hatred not towards the enemy but towards women – and then they were upon her, pinning her down, clamping her mouth shut, tearing off her clothes. She had been too surprised to act, and then too choked with fear. In her greatest moment of weakness she had pleaded for grace. Her heart opened to the same madness that infected the air, and the feeling of it was vile, like dipping into a swamp pool, and when it was over she could remember nothing of what had happened save that her men lay dead around her with their heads split open as if some great fanged mouth had torn away chunks of their skull.

But there is no time for reminiscing, no time for regrets. There is time now for one last lesson.

Maltran places her hands on Alisha's spear. Gently, she slides the spear into herself, feels it penetrate her heart and it is a curious feeling, to be impaled. The metal is cold. Alisha stares at her with eyes that have forgotten tears in their surprise, and her emotions are all too evident in those clear green irises – how many times has she told the girl not to be so clear with her feelings? The _hurt_ in those eyes is raw, and it is cowardice that forces Maltran to break her gaze, and were she not seconds away from death she would've sobbed.

From her mother Alisha had learned kindness.

From Maltran she will learn cruelty.


End file.
